When the dimensions of structures, such as silicon nanowires, are extremely small, processing these structures without damaging them is a challenge. For example, silicidation of a nanowire array is very difficult to carry out without causing at least some of the wires to break during the process. Breakage is especially prevelant when the nanowires are suspended.
Silicidation, in general, involves depositing a metal such as nickel on the silicon structure and then annealing the structure to intersperse the metal within the silicon. Silicidation is used in many different contexts of device fabrication. By way of example only, silicidation is used to form source and drain regions in nanowire-channel based transistors.
With extremely small structures, problems arise during the anneal. Specifically, there is a very small process window outside of which if a little too much metal is deposited then the structures break (which is thought to be stress related). This action, in the case of a nanowire for example, will undesirably cause the wire to sever.
Therefore, techniques that permit processing, e.g., silicidation, of structures with extremely small dimensions, such as nanowires, without causing the structures to break would be desirable.